Poems, Ballads and Bucolics :: :: University of Virginia Library

Yes, come up close, the coffin is right,
The best wood job I have done in my life;
Did you think I was going to shame the wife?
Tennon and mortice tight!

Sit down here till the storm blows o'er,
You are cold, I feel it as warm as May;
The sun shines bright as it shone that day
We rested here before.

There lies the very same stick, I declare,
She broke from the hedge for the pack on my shoulder;

I can hear her laugh and her sigh when I told her
Thorns could not carry care.

For I was the village carpenter,
Work in the place was woefully slack,
So we tramped; I carried the tools on my back
For love of my darling there.

I remember a passionless face flashed by;
The wife looked down at her dusty feet,
“I suppose I shall never take a seat
In a carriage before I die.”

Oh God! how the sun went under a cloud;
I rose and I clenched my fist, and cried,
“Is a cold heart better with plenty and pride
Than want that feels and is proud?”

We wandered on from village to town,
We shunned the commoner lodging place,
She wiped the morning dews from her face,
She shook the dust from her gown.

Her face lies under a colder dew,
Body and gown are both as dust;

But she has travelled to rest, I trust,
Where never a tempest blew.

Work would not come though we sought it wide,
We toiled through sun, and we braved the storm;
And then—she was far too frail of form—
She sickened, and then she died.

But or ever she slept, she rambled, and spake
Of that old old village she loved from birth.
I am seeking there six feet of earth
For her dear dead body's sake.

I had no friends in the far-off spot,
I wrought this coffin with mine own hand;
We started together through the land,
The last time, too, God wot.

She cheered me on over hill, over dale,
She shared each crust that the people gave;
I have often wished I might share her grave,
But what can a wish avail?

I have done with wishes, I wished for pay,
Half-pay and full work, so it gained her bread,

I wished her to live.—She is dead! she is dead!
I have wished my life away.

Uphill and down, to me all was one,
Her coffin it made the journey level;
In wrath I asked if a god or devil
To me this deed had done.

How had I sinned to be treated so?
Did ever a man love better than I?
I could curse right out, but I could not cry,
And on and on did I go.

Sometimes downhill, with a passionate pace,
Her coffin tilted against the sun;
Sometimes in anger it seemed to run
Full into the moon's white face.

No pity by night, no pity by day,
The stars in heaven were keen and cold,
The earth from the morn to the sunset rolled
Compassionless on its way.

The woodland moaned and the hedges cried,
The long wet roads were bitter and wild,

And never a face upon me smiled,
Her face it was shut inside.

Hoarse voices blaming me came with the wind,
The passers by gazed all askance
As if I had killed her; and on in a trance
I pushed, nor looked behind.

One met me once who had wronged me sore,
Right up to the coffin he came and spoke,
Kindly, I think, but I could but choke,
I hated him all the more.

I pushed down the streets of a darkened town,
I saw on the window-blinds the shade
The wives bent over their needles made,
Where, oh where, was my own?

The Christmas bells came over the lea,
It was hollow mockery all they rang;
I heard the carols, but what they sang
Seemed madness unto me.

And once on a night the stars from heaven
Fell fierce with a flash across our way;

I had cursed her God, but I could not pray,
Nor care to be forgiven.

But yestermorn on the ridge of a hill,
Where quite foredone with the toil I stopt,
A robin down on her coffin dropt
And sang his sweetest trill.

All thro' the day with a song in mine ears,—
For she loved the bird with the red on its breast,—
I pushed on bravely, my soul had rest,
And I felt on my cheek the tears.

Dreamed of my darling, then woke and wept,
And dreamed again; to-day I am strong,
For she sang a lilt to the robin's song,
And smiled on me as I slept.

This morning the coffin seemed so light,
I whistled myself, half-ashamed, poor dear,
That a passer-by should see us and hear;
But I felt that to whistle was right.

For all the way now through wind and weather
This hand-cart has no weight for my hand,

We are travelling both to a happier land,
And our souls are still together.

“A poor man entered the town of Thirsk last evening pushing a handcart before him, on which was his wife's coffin. He was a carpenter who had gone off from his home with his wife in search of work. She had died in a town somewhere on the east coast. Being without money or friends, he had made a coffin, and had either borrowed or knocked together a handcart, and was making his way by road back to his native village to bury her.”—Extract from local paper